Letting the fish explore
Apr. 18th, 2019 03:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteIt seems strange to consider, but I am probably approaching a point in my career - maybe less than a year from now - when I can step away from the endless treadmill of computer use that I have been on for almost all of my life.
I wonder: what will change about me?
Will I become more outgoing?
Will my interest in people be renewed?
Will I become happier, or less happy?
Will I be more creative?
I have used computers for so many different kinds of artistic pursuits that sometimes I actually catch myself wondering what other creative people can possibly be up to if they are not parked in front of a computer. Sure, many writers prefer physical pen and paper, but those that don’t are usually sitting in front of a keyboard just like me. Some painters may prefer the physical brush and easel, but the rest have moved to touchscreen tablets for flexibility and to save on materials. Musicians almost never compose on paper these days. Same with architects and engineers, until they need to print something for a construction site. DJs and live performers have traded their massive mixing rigs for laptops with little pads and boxes dangling off them. Seems like if everyone is migrating towards computers for artistic expression, then me being anchored to my own just places me ahead of the curve and changing my behavior would make me a Luddite -- a cranky old man sitting on his front porch and dreaming of a simpler time that's vanished into the past while he wasn't looking.
But what can I say except the truth: I am sick and tired of keyboards and mice and touchscreens. Even switches and knobs and blinky lights. The fact that those things are very versatile and that I am very good at using them has changed from a proud asset into a bland annoyance.
I really do like music mixing, and writing little essays and letters, and organizing weird piles of information, and tweaking photos until they look the way I intended them to look when I pressed the shutter. I have the soul of a filing clerk in me, and the computer makes him very happy. But while he is humming blissfully away inside my head, my hands and feet and ass are complaining, louder and louder. “Burnout” doesn’t really describe it anymore. It’s an ongoing badly-controlled fire, and I count myself very lucky that I have inched my way this close to a financial situation that could allow me to take a long needed break from screens and keyboards and tablets and mice.
So now I get to think about it -- not just as a dreamy “what if” scenario but as a real possibility. What would it be like, if I didn’t have to spend every weekday anchored to a screen, thinking in code?
Perhaps I can look at the vacations I’ve taken recently to get an idea. Last June I spent a week at Toorcamp avoiding screens almost completely, and in July I went on a technology-light camping trip, then a trip hunting fossils in the desert with a camera, where I used the laptop only to dump videos for a few minutes each night. How did those go?
Well if I was looking for a common thread in these trips, it would be that there was a delay of a few days and then my mind started to wander in a bunch of interesting directions that it usually doesn’t reach. At Toorcamp I really got to dig into my relationship with geek culture and see how a lot of it is just youth culture in a disguise that I can no longer comfortably wear. On the camping trip I had a lot of interesting thoughts about structured versus unstructured time and my relationship to my work, and the way my parents and sisters influenced me. In the desert I thought about maps and navigation, and deep time, and got to practice my cinematography.
When I’m spending most of each day repeatedly dunking my brain in database and website code, these thoughts cannot crystallize.
Another strong thread in common is that I found myself enjoying the company of other people way more often than usual. I think this is because I didn’t need so much private time to reset my brain. I know I’ve never been fully introverted - like most people I am a mix - but perhaps a lot of my current introversion is actually a side effect of my work. It seems contradictory, but the evidence is telling me that an extended vacation might make me more of a people person and give me more room to think at the same time.
Kind of a weird idea. But I can see the sense in it.
In the meantime, I build code and tend to my finances, and continue tinkering with the house, and doing all of the self-maintenance things that I need to do so that I can keep the money coming in. It’s not like I’m in a bad position. Middle-class life is a pretty good life. But I do wonder, about that other half-seen version of myself, and if he will ever have a chance to emerge.
When you've been writing code for something like thirty years straight, you start to wonder about stuff like this. If you're lucky enough to go on a vacation of a month or more (I've been able to do this exactly twice in this last 30 years) you notice that after the fourth or fifth week your brain starts to change shape really alarmingly, and it feels ...
How interesting; the word I want to use is "easy." Any other mode of thinking feels incredibly easy, compared to writing code. You look all around you at other people and realize with a twinge of jealousy that their brains get to take on all kinds of fun shapes, all day long, and just about all of them are way easier and more pleasant than what you've been doing. You are reminded why so few people do your kind of work even though the pay is very high: It is very hard to do well for sustained amounts of time.
And then woe is you, because when that month is over and you're back in the temple staring at the gigantic mandala and painstakingly etching out pieces of it, your brain writhes like a fish. It wants to do anything - anything at all, please, I'm begging you, JUST ANYTHING - but write more code.
But you plant both hands on top of the fish and add your knee on top, and eventually it stops writhing, and you write more code.
I wonder: what will change about me?
Will I become more outgoing?
Will my interest in people be renewed?
Will I become happier, or less happy?
Will I be more creative?
I have used computers for so many different kinds of artistic pursuits that sometimes I actually catch myself wondering what other creative people can possibly be up to if they are not parked in front of a computer. Sure, many writers prefer physical pen and paper, but those that don’t are usually sitting in front of a keyboard just like me. Some painters may prefer the physical brush and easel, but the rest have moved to touchscreen tablets for flexibility and to save on materials. Musicians almost never compose on paper these days. Same with architects and engineers, until they need to print something for a construction site. DJs and live performers have traded their massive mixing rigs for laptops with little pads and boxes dangling off them. Seems like if everyone is migrating towards computers for artistic expression, then me being anchored to my own just places me ahead of the curve and changing my behavior would make me a Luddite -- a cranky old man sitting on his front porch and dreaming of a simpler time that's vanished into the past while he wasn't looking.But what can I say except the truth: I am sick and tired of keyboards and mice and touchscreens. Even switches and knobs and blinky lights. The fact that those things are very versatile and that I am very good at using them has changed from a proud asset into a bland annoyance.
I really do like music mixing, and writing little essays and letters, and organizing weird piles of information, and tweaking photos until they look the way I intended them to look when I pressed the shutter. I have the soul of a filing clerk in me, and the computer makes him very happy. But while he is humming blissfully away inside my head, my hands and feet and ass are complaining, louder and louder. “Burnout” doesn’t really describe it anymore. It’s an ongoing badly-controlled fire, and I count myself very lucky that I have inched my way this close to a financial situation that could allow me to take a long needed break from screens and keyboards and tablets and mice.
So now I get to think about it -- not just as a dreamy “what if” scenario but as a real possibility. What would it be like, if I didn’t have to spend every weekday anchored to a screen, thinking in code?
Perhaps I can look at the vacations I’ve taken recently to get an idea. Last June I spent a week at Toorcamp avoiding screens almost completely, and in July I went on a technology-light camping trip, then a trip hunting fossils in the desert with a camera, where I used the laptop only to dump videos for a few minutes each night. How did those go?
Well if I was looking for a common thread in these trips, it would be that there was a delay of a few days and then my mind started to wander in a bunch of interesting directions that it usually doesn’t reach. At Toorcamp I really got to dig into my relationship with geek culture and see how a lot of it is just youth culture in a disguise that I can no longer comfortably wear. On the camping trip I had a lot of interesting thoughts about structured versus unstructured time and my relationship to my work, and the way my parents and sisters influenced me. In the desert I thought about maps and navigation, and deep time, and got to practice my cinematography.
When I’m spending most of each day repeatedly dunking my brain in database and website code, these thoughts cannot crystallize.
Another strong thread in common is that I found myself enjoying the company of other people way more often than usual. I think this is because I didn’t need so much private time to reset my brain. I know I’ve never been fully introverted - like most people I am a mix - but perhaps a lot of my current introversion is actually a side effect of my work. It seems contradictory, but the evidence is telling me that an extended vacation might make me more of a people person and give me more room to think at the same time.
Kind of a weird idea. But I can see the sense in it.
In the meantime, I build code and tend to my finances, and continue tinkering with the house, and doing all of the self-maintenance things that I need to do so that I can keep the money coming in. It’s not like I’m in a bad position. Middle-class life is a pretty good life. But I do wonder, about that other half-seen version of myself, and if he will ever have a chance to emerge.
When you've been writing code for something like thirty years straight, you start to wonder about stuff like this. If you're lucky enough to go on a vacation of a month or more (I've been able to do this exactly twice in this last 30 years) you notice that after the fourth or fifth week your brain starts to change shape really alarmingly, and it feels ...
How interesting; the word I want to use is "easy." Any other mode of thinking feels incredibly easy, compared to writing code. You look all around you at other people and realize with a twinge of jealousy that their brains get to take on all kinds of fun shapes, all day long, and just about all of them are way easier and more pleasant than what you've been doing. You are reminded why so few people do your kind of work even though the pay is very high: It is very hard to do well for sustained amounts of time.
And then woe is you, because when that month is over and you're back in the temple staring at the gigantic mandala and painstakingly etching out pieces of it, your brain writhes like a fish. It wants to do anything - anything at all, please, I'm begging you, JUST ANYTHING - but write more code.
But you plant both hands on top of the fish and add your knee on top, and eventually it stops writhing, and you write more code.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 02:10 pm (UTC)I would recommend trying a class of ceramics (wheel throwing). The magic feeling of cold clay under your hands suddenly behaving as if it's alive, and you can turn this thing into what you want - when you learn how to do it. It's a magic feeling.